


The Truest Taste

by YesBothWays



Series: Love is a Quest [17]
Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 12:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3896089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YesBothWays/pseuds/YesBothWays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a poem from Xena's perspective</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truest Taste

You said to me one day

You wished you could put

The way I taste into a story.

I told you that you already

Put your taste in my story.

 

I know you thought that

Strange and smiled mainly

Because you loved me. A

Warrior has no gift with words.

We have tortured our senses.

 

The other arts fly away from

Us as we shape ourselves to

This one art. War will not

Share one's heart or one's body.

With you, I've stolen from gods.

 

The philosophers will say

That no two people can ever

Find a taste to be just the same

For our sense are woven

Through with memory and we

Meet the new already made.

 

There are so few tastes

That do not connect me

To a vast memory of wars.

A pallet of my own making

Binds me to a hated past.

 

Wine is the most common.

At times, I can taste what I

Know cannot be there now,

Dirt and blood and smoke

And victory. Always victory.

 

Meat is worse. The charred

Taste of an open fire on

Flesh means I cannot think

Or feel or truly taste if I

Intend to shallow a meal.

 

And other tastes far finer

Sweeter and more rare.

I remember a plate of figs

From the day I killed and

Beheaded the giant, Angor.

 

I drank a cup of sweet milk

Moments before I rode out

Onto the fields of Corinth

And covered the grass in

Swathes of spilled blood.

 

I drew a plum down from

The tree, the same day I

Slew a women five times

My equal but less strong.

They taste now of remorse.

 

Apples may be the worst.

I stole an orchard, set out

Encampments under shade

Of the trees before marching

Away, bags packed with fruit.

 

When you place your mouth

Upon mine, I taste what could

Never be again, I had thought.

A present and a future, and

A recent past far less bitter.

 

On days we're apart, I forget

That taste, I'm afraid to say.

And I know it changes me.

You find me harder, so you

Will kiss me, over and over.

 

Each time the taste of you

Washes across my senses

I find myself in a world that

Can offer both life and renewal.

I possess my own senses again.

 

Is it any wonder you have

Found, as you remark, how

Excellent I am as a lover,

Endurant and passionate,

As I never was for any before.

 

For one more taste of you

I would ride to the end then

Beyond. I would take up any

Quest, gain mastery over

Gods, death, and time.


End file.
